The Gamble (23 page)

It was outrageous that women had to bring up their babies in places like this.

Well, Maria was not going to have to bring up her baby here, I vowed. I would make Philip give her a nice cottage at Winterdale Park, where she could eat healthy food and drink plenty of milk and enjoy the warm Surrey sunshine.

“He ain’t there.” It was Maria coming back in the door. “Probably out on business. I reckon we’ll have to wait for the morning to catch him.”

I wanted badly to get home. I knew that Frank and Catherine would be frantic with worry about me. But I didn’t seem to have any choice. It would be foolish in the extreme for me to venture forth unprotected upon the streets again. I had been saved once. I couldn’t count upon God providing a second miracle.

“All right,” I said, resigned to the fact that I was going to have to spend the rest of the night in this freezing room.

“You take the bed, my lady,” Maria said. “I can sit up in the chair.”

“I wouldn’t dream of taking your bed from you, Maria,” I said firmly.

This was not merely politeness on my part. Doubtless I was being a prude, but the thought of what must have transpired in that bed truly disgusted me. I would rather freeze by the empty grate than lay amidst the scene of all those sexual horrors.

“You don’t know anyone from whom you could borrow a little coal at this hour, do you?” I asked hopefully.

“I am afraid not, my lady.”

“Oh well,” I said heartily. “I have my domino, Maria. I shall be just fine. Don’t even think about me, just get into your own bed and get some rest. We’ll try to catch your neighbor in the morning.”

After a few more protests, she saw that I meant what I said and we all settled down for the night.

The chair I was sitting in was hard, and a silk domino provides no warmth when it is worn over a short-sleeved, half-torn evening gown. I shivered for hours. I don’t think I have ever been so glad to see the sky beginning to lighten with the coming day as I was that morning.

The baby woke Maria, crying to be fed. After she had taken care of him she went upstairs to see if her neighbor had returned home yet. She returned with a wizened little man who had a gimpy leg and a nasty scar on his right cheek.

“This is my neighbor, Colin Tregrew,” Maria said to me. “Colin, this lady is the Countess of Winterdale.”

“I need to get in touch with a man called Claven, Mr. Tregrew,” I said. “Can you do that for me?”

“I reckon I can,” he returned cautiously. “What is it that you wants me to tell him, my lady?”

“Just tell him that Lord Winterdale’s wife was attacked at Vauxhall last night and begs his assistance in being returned to her home in Grosvenor Square.”

The little man looked me up and down with sharp, glittering, dark eyes. The blood had dried on my domino leaving ugly rusty-colored stains. I kept it pulled together over my dress so that he could not see the tear that exposed my breasts. I was quite sure that my nose was red as a cherry from the cold. It was certainly running, and I could not disguise the fact that I was shivering badly.

“All right,” he said slowly. “I’ll tell him that.” He turned to Maria. “I can let you have a wee bit of coal first before I go.”

“That would be wonderful!” I said. I had gotten to the point where I didn’t think I would ever be warm again.

The blessed Mr. Tregrew returned with the promised coal and started a fire for us before he took his departure. I stood in front of the grate and toasted myself while Maria took care of the baby.

Maria said, “I usually go out to buy some bread for breakfast. Would you care for something to eat, my lady?”

“I lost my reticule when I was attacked last night or I would give you the money to get breakfast, Maria,” I said regretfully. “Are you sure you have enough to get something for me, too?”

“I will if I use my supper money, too,” she replied.

“You won’t need your supper money as you will be coming home with me,” I promised her. “Go ahead and get us some breakfast.”

I was starving.

While Maria was gone, the baby began to cry, and I picked him up from his cot and walked him around the room, patting him on the back. He heaved a huge burp, and stopped crying. I didn’t put him back into his cot immediately, though. It was a very nice feeling to hold a baby in one’s arms, I thought.

Perhaps one day soon I would be holding a baby of my own.

Maria returned with the promised bread, I put the baby back into his cot, and we stood in front of the fire to eat.

The bread was so hard and so stale that I could scarcely chew it.

Maria chewed it, though. The poor girl ate that dreadful stale bread as if it was a dish from the Prince Regent’s kitchen. I pretended not to be very hungry and gave her mine, and she ate that, too.

I was standing in front of the fire, hungry but warmer, when there came a knock upon the door.

“Maria, it’s me. Colin.”

Maria ran to open the door and there in the doorway stood the hugest man I had ever seen in my life.

Mr. Tregrew said, “This here is Mr. Claven. He’s come to meet Lady Winterdale.”

I stepped forward. “I am Lady Winterdale. Come in, Mr. Claven. I am very grateful to you for coming to see me.”

The giant ducked his head and came into the room, which immediately seemed half the size. He had shoulders that were as wide as my armspan and he had to be six feet four inches in height. He was immense.

He looked at me and immediately noticed the bloodstains on my domino. He didn’t ask about them immediately, however, First he said, “How did you know to send for me?”

“My husband told me that you were helping him to find out who was trying to harm me,” I said.

He had thick light brown hair and thick light brown eyebrows and he frowned at me now and said, “It’s not like Philip to mention my name.”

His speech was curiously accentless, as if he had worked very hard to remove any traces of his origin from it. He reminded me of a lion—not the poor scruffy one whom I had encountered at the Tower, but a sleek, powerful lion in the full strength of his maturity and health.

“He was quite drunk when he told me,” I said coolly. “That was your fault, I believe.”

He grinned suddenly, and the menace I had sensed in his presence disappeared.

“It took me two days to recover from that night,” he said. “Becoming respectable hasn’t softened Philip’s head one little bit.”

It occurred to me that my husband appeared to be on a first-name basis with every scoundrel in London.

Claven’s face once again became serious and he said, “All right, then, Lady Winterdale. You’d better tell me exactly what happened.”

I told him everything, starting from Frank and I being attacked at Vauxhall to my rescue by Maria.

“Alf and Jem,” he said thoughtfully.

“Ain’t they the coves that worked for Lamey?” Mr. Tregrew asked.

“I believe so,” Claven said. “Have them picked up, will you Colin? I want to talk to them.”

On the surface he sounded calm and reasonable, but for some reason, I shuddered.

He looked at me. “The first thing we need to do, Lady Winterdale, is to see that you get home. Philip will murder me if anything happens to you. I’m surprised he wasn’t banging down the door of my office last night.”

It seemed so odd to hear this man, who was evidently the king of the London underworld, talking about his “office,” just as if he were a respectable barrister.

“My husband went to Winterdale Park yesterday so he doesn’t know about my abduction,” I explained. “But he should be back in London this afternoon.”

“I see.” Claven gave me a look that was almost as intimidating as Philip’s blue stare could be. “May I give you some advice, Lady Winterdale? Don’t leave your husband’s sight until we get this little puzzle resolved. It was very stupid of you to go to Vauxhall alone last night.”

“I didn’t go alone,” I protested. “I went with friends. One of them is a Peninsula veteran, for heaven’s sake!”

“Fighting in a war is one thing; street fighting is something else. As I have just told you, don’t go anywhere without your husband.”

Claven turned to Mr. Tregrew. “Get a hackney to come along here, will you, Colin? Then you can put out the word for Alf and Jem.”

CHAPTER
twenty-two

C
LAVEN HIMSELF ESCORTED
M
ARIA AND ME BACK TO
Grosvenor Square. Catherine and Frank came running into the hall from the drawing room as soon as they heard Mason say my name, and Catherine flung her arms around me and held me tight.

“Is his lordship at home?” I heard Claven asking Mason.

“His lordship is from home at present,” Mason answered icily. Apparently, even though Claven was dressed in proper morning clothes of blue coat and fawn-colored breeches, and even though his voice bore no traces of dialect, the butler had decided that the huge man was not worthy of being addressed as a gentleman.

I loosened Catherine’s arms from their grip around me and ignored Frank’s urgent questions about my well-being to go shake Claven’s hand.

“Thank you, Mr. Claven, for your assistance,” I said fervently. “I will tell my husband how you helped me to get home.”

“Tell Philip to come and see me as soon as he returns,” Claven recommended. He gave me an admonitory look. “And don’t go anywhere without him.”

“I won’t,” I promised.

As Claven turned to leave, the slender forms of Maria and her baby, who had been sheltering behind him, were revealed to the rest of the people in the hall. I went to put an arm around my rescuer and bring her forward. “Come and meet my friends, Maria,” I said. “I want them to know how much I owe you.”

Maria pressed against me. I saw the frightened and awed look she cast around the vast marble hall, and my mind went back to my first visit to Mansfield House. I knew exactly how intimidated she was feeling.

I said to Catherine and Frank, “This is the girl who saved my life. Her name is Maria Sarton. And this is her son, Reggie.”

Catherine, whose essential kindness one could always count on, responded immediately. “We shall be eternally grateful to you, Maria. We have been terrified for Georgie ever since she was kidnapped from Vauxhall.”

“That is so,” Frank agreed. For the first time I noticed that he had a swollen eye and a puffed-up lip. Once again he asked urgently, “Are you all right, Georgie? Nothing . . . terrible . . . happened to you?”

“Nothing,” I said firmly. “Thanks to Maria.”

“I want to hear the whole story,” Frank said grimly.

“I will tell you, but first Maria and I want to get warm and to eat. We’re starving.” I looked around for Mason, who appeared as if by magic. I was certain that he had been listening avidly from some secret post of his own.

“Mason, have some food brought to my dressing room,” I said. “A nice spread, if you please. Cold meat, eggs, muffins, chocolate, coffee . . .”

“Yes, my lady,” Mason said.

I steered Maria toward Mansfield House’s magnificent circular staircase. I was taking her to my dressing room because it was the coziest room I could think of, and I wanted her to be comfortable. I knew she would be extremely uncomfortable in the grandeur of the dining room, and I did not want to expose her to the haughtiness of the servants in the kitchen, who would most certainly treat her with less respect than we would.

I also thought that my dressing room was one place where we would be safe from Lady Winterdale.

“You can come, too, Frank,” I said over my shoulder.

And so all of us filed up the stairs and into the privacy of my dressing room. We settled the baby on the chaise longue, with Maria beside him, and the rest of us took the three other chairs in the room.

I proceeded to tell my tale to Catherine and Frank.

The food was delivered and Maria and I ate. I continued to talk, but Maria ate silently and seriously and we all left her alone to concentrate on filling a stomach that quite obviously had not been properly filled in a very long time.

Frank was bitterly angry with himself for having been careless enough to put me in danger and then for not being capable of protecting me.

Catherine was upset that it was she who had coaxed me into going to Vauxhall in the first place. And then she said, with a very uneasy look in her eyes, “It appears that Philip is acquainted with this man Claven, Georgie.” She bit her lip nervously. “You don’t think that Philip had anything to do with your abduction, do you?”

I went up in flames.

“How can you even suggest such an outrageous thing?” I said furiously. “Claven is the person who rescued me, Catherine! Philip is working with Claven to try to find out who is responsible for all these attacks on me.” I glared at her. “I can’t believe that you, of all people, could be so stupid.”

She continued to bite her lip and look miserable. “I’m sorry, Georgie. It’s just that I don’t understand why these things should be happening to you. It doesn’t make sense. You aren’t a threat to anyone. Why should someone want to kill you?”

Frank and I were sitting opposite each other on either side of the fireplace and now we looked at each other. I had told Frank about my father’s blackmailing scheme, but I did not want to tell Catherine. After all, her father had been one of my father’s victims. I had never got the impression that Catherine was overly fond of her father, but one never likes to discover that one’s parent was a cheat.

Also, selfishly, I didn’t want to ruin Catherine’s good opinion of me. She had become such a dear friend, and I didn’t want to lose her regard.

I looked at her. She was perched on the small white beechwood chair that belonged to the dressing table, and I could see from the look on her face that she was not convinced of Philip’s innocence.

Regretfully, I decided that Catherine’s regard for both her father and for me was going to have to be sacrificed. I could not have her blaming Philip for something that was not his fault.

I sighed and said, “I see that I shall have to tell you all. This is not a pretty story, Catherine, so prepare yourself.” And I launched into the all-too-familiar tale.

When I finished, Catherine’s eyes were huge behind her spectacles.

“Papa had money troubles?” she said in amazement. “I never knew that.”

“Philip found it out when he inherited. That is why he spends so much time with all of these business people. He is trying to bring the Winterdale estate back to what it should be.”

“I always thought that Papa was just mean,” Catherine said with wonder.

“No, he was broke. Then he tried to acquire some money by cheating at cards, and my papa caught him.”

Catherine leaned toward me, reaching out her hand. I put mine into hers and she squeezed it. “I am so sorry, Georgie,” she said. “It must have been a terrible shock to you to discover that your papa was a blackmailer.”

I stared at my friend. “Catherine, my father was blackmailing your father! Don’t you hate me for that?”

“Of course I don’t hate you,” she returned. “What does anything our fathers did have to do with you and me?”

I took my hand away from hers. “Didn’t you just hear me? After my father died, I came here and blackmailed Philip. That is why he presented me. I was just as bad as my father.”

“Not at all,” she returned serenely. “You did it for Anna, not for yourself. If it was not for Anna, you would have married Frank and not blackmailed anyone. Isn’t that true?”

Frank made a sound indicative of extreme pain.

I winced. I might have said such a thing once, but I was horribly afraid that Catherine’s remark was making the wrong impression on Frank.

At this point, Reggie began to cry. I turned to Maria, who was sitting on the chaise longue, holding her son, and listening to us with a mixture of bewilderment and wonder.

“I imagine the baby is hungry, too,” I said to her with a smile.

“That he is, my lady.”

I had been thinking about where to put Maria and I decided now that for this night she could have Anna’s old room. Lady Winterdale and the housekeeper would have a fit, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t putting Maria in with the servants, who I was certain would treat her like a whore.

Well, she was a whore, but it wasn’t her fault.

As soon as Philip returned to London, I would talk to him about sending Maria into the country.

I stood up. “Come along with me, Maria, and I will show you to your room, and you will be able to feed Reggie in peace.”

* * *

Philip got back to Mansfield House at six o’clock that evening. I was in my dressing room getting ready for dinner when he came in the door, exuding such an aura of danger that he made poor Betty drop the hairbrush she had been holding. It clattered to the top of the dressing table and we both jumped.

“That will be all for now, Betty,” he said in a clipped voice. “I want to talk to her ladyship alone.”

“Yes, my lord,” Betty said, and she scuttled out the door as quickly as she could.

The door wasn’t even closed behind her before Philip demanded, still in that same clipped voice, “All right. What happened?”

I swung around on the beechwood chair and faced him bravely. “What have you heard?” I asked.

“My aunt met me with the news that you went to Vauxhall with Catherine and Frank, that you disappeared for the night and are now harboring a ‘young person of dubious respectability,’” he replied grimly.

“Your aunt is a menace, Philip,” I said hotly. “She is forever poking her nose into my business. This was for me to tell you about, not her!”

He folded his arms. There was a white line about his mouth. “Then tell me about it, Georgie,” he said.

“I have every intention of doing so,” I replied with dignity. Then I told him the whole story. The only thing I left out was the bit about Alf’s desire to rape me. I had a feeling that that little extra might be the final spark that would cause Philip to ignite.

When I had finished he skewered me with his coldest, bluest stare. “I strictly forbade you to leave this house while I was gone.”

I tried a placating smile. “I know you did, Philip, but I couldn’t find it in my heart to deny Catherine. She desperately needed me as a chaperone. And I took Frank along. Good God, he’s been through a war! I thought he would be sufficient protection.”

“Well he wasn’t, was he?”

I sighed and shook my head. “The poor man looks as if he took a sad pummeling. I feel bad. It was all my fault.”

By now there was a white line around his nostrils as well as his mouth. “It certainly was your fault. If you had obeyed me and remained at home, none of this would have happened.”

All of this talk about commanding and obeying was beginning to set my back up.

“I’m not your dog, Philip,” I said irritably. “In retrospect, I agree with you that it was not wise of me to have gone to Vauxhall, but at the time it didn’t seem like such a dreadful thing to do.”

His eyes narrowed. I added hastily, before he could say or do anything else, “Claven said he wants to see you. He was going to try to put his hands on Alf and Jem to find out for whom they were working.”

A little silence fell between us. He still had that white look that made me nervous. I plucked at the muslin skirt of my dress and bravely held his gaze.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He said, “Did you even think to tell Catherine not to mention to anyone that you would be going to Vauxhall with her?”

I bit my lip. I shook my head. I felt like an idiot.

“So not only did you make the foolish decision to go to an open, unprotected place such as Vauxhall, but you took no precautions to make certain that no one would know you were going to be there.”

I was feeling more stupid with every passing minute.

“No,” I said glumly.

At last he moved away from the door, going over to the fireplace and resting his hands on the mantel. With his back to me, he stared down into the glowing coals, and said, “From what you are telling me, then, the only person who is responsible for the fact that you did not find yourself raped and murdered and dumped in an alley is this young woman my aunt was holding her nose about.”

I hadn’t said anything about rape, but I suppose he knew the type of men I had been dealing with.

“Yes,” I said.

His hands clenched on the mantelpiece turning his knuckles white with pressure.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“I put her in Anna’s old bedroom. I did not want to expose her to the snobbery of the servants.”

He turned to face me once more. A lock of black hair fell forward across his forehead. “You can’t keep her in Anna’s bedroom forever. It won’t be comfortable either for her or for us.”

“I know. I was thinking—perhaps you could find a nice little cottage for her at Winterdale Park? She is from the country originally.” I leaned forward in my chair. “She told me the most horror-filled story, Philip. You cannot imagine what has happened to that poor girl.”

His face was bleak. “I can imagine very well,” he said.

“No, but listen . . .” And I told him everything that Maria had told me.

“It happens every day, Georgie,” he said wearily.

“What kind of man would take advantage of a poor, helpless girl like that?” I asked in disgust. “I don’t understand it at all.”

He didn’t answer.

“And that part of London where I was being held!” I shuddered. “It isn’t right, Philip, that some people should live so luxuriously while others live surrounded by such dreadful filth and poverty.”

“The world is not an easy place to live in, Georgie. And if one expects to encounter justice in this life, then one is a fool.”

There was so much bitterness in his voice that I winced. His face was hard and shuttered.

“Well . . . will you find a cottage for Maria?” I asked helplessly.

“Yes.”

He turned to go. He had not touched me once.

“Philip?” I said in a small voice.

He turned back. I stood up and ran to fling myself into his arms. “I’m sorry,” I said into his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to put myself into danger, truly I didn’t.”

His arms came up to hold me, and for just one moment he pressed me so tightly against him that I thought my ribs would crack.

Then he let me go.

“I know, sweetheart,” he said. “Let us hope that Claven has some information that will help us to put this matter to rest.”

And he was gone.